Chaperons, even in their days of glory, were almost never able to enforce morality; what they did was to force immorality to be discreet. This is no small contribution. |
Children should acknowledge other people, saying 'hello,' 'good morning,' 'goodbye'. They should understand that there are times to sit down and be quiet. That's a prerequisite for school. They also need a respect for authority, the lack of which is a tremendous handicap in school. |
Gentle reader: Yes, the thing to do is to ignore it. A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable |
Honesty has come to mean the privilege of insulting you to your face without expecting redress. |
Hypocrisy is not generally a social sin, but a virtue. |
If written directions alone would suffice, libraries wouldn't need to have the rest of the universities attached. |
Indeed, Miss Manners has come to believe that the basic political division in this country is not between liberals and conservatives but between those who believe that they should have a say in the love lives of strangers and those who do not. |
It's far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help. |
It's like children getting new toys. But the excitement is over. People should be over it. |
Many people mistakenly think a new technology cancels out an old one. |
The dinner table is the center for the teaching and practicing not just of table manners but of conversation, consideration, tolerance, family feeling, and just about all the other accomplishments of polite society except the minuet. |
The invention of the teenager was a mistake. Once you identify a period of life in which people get to stay out late but don't have to pay taxes - naturally, nobody wants to live any other way. |
The simple idea that everyone needs a reasonable amount of challenging work in his or her life, and also a personal life, complete with noncompetitive leisure, has never really taken hold. |
This is a question of social control, |
We already know that anonymous letters are despicable. In etiquette, as well as in law, hiring a hit man to do the job does not relieve you of responsibility. |